Summary: The phrase 'Zinda Laash' (living corpse) was immortalized in Pakeezah, and since then it has been the most common form of expressing the sex worker's angst in Bollywood cinema: they are living corpses who live in hell. It perhaps also signifies a way of dividing the body and the soul, a way of suggesting that despite the body being a commercial object or living corpse, the soul remains untouched. Such allegories are common in most films that show women in prostitution, it is both a way of evoking self pity as well as the audience's sympathy towards the prostitute with a heart of gold. The clip from Pakeezah, exemplifies both these positions.

Lucknow, India
This clip is from the film Pakeezah (dir: Kamal Amrohi, 1971). Nargis (Meena Kumari) was brought up by a brothel madam, and grows up to be a popular and beautiful courtesan. Salim (Raaj Kumar) falls in love with her, and convinces her to escape with him. But her identity is inescapable - and she is recognized as a courtesan wherever she goes. Salim renames her Pakeezah (the pure one) and takes her to a priest to be legally married. She refuses and returns to the brothel, only to save Salim from the stigma attached to her name. Later she discovers that she is actually the daughter of a wealthy nawab, who does not deny this fact. The film highlights that the courtesan's life is full of luxuries and she is economically independent, however she finds her profession so shameful, that she calls herself a living corpse. She believes that her soul is dead. This film also falls within the genre of Hindi cinema that can be called the Muslim social.
Hindi cinema
Kamal Amrohi
Meena Kumari
Muslim social
Pakeezah
Raaj Kumar
beautiful
brothel
corpse
courtesan
dead
genre
prostitute
sex worker
shameful
soul
tawaif
zinda laash

Yes. My vagabond dead body has returned to be buried
in this colourful tomb.

- Hush! What dead body?
Yes. Every whore is a dead body. I'm a dead body. And you too!

This marketplace is a graveyard of women whose souls are dead but the bodies remain alive.

These mansions (brothels) are our tombs in which the living coffins of we dead women are kept after being decorated.

Our graves are not covered, they are left open, so that...
- Shh...Quiet. -

I am the restless corpse of one such open grave...which is lured by life again and again.

Bollywood
Corpse
Dubai
Hyderabad
Hyderabad, India
Manisha Koirala
Market
Market (dir: Prakash Shaw, 2003), revolves around the life of a young Muslim girl from Hyderabad, Muskaan Bano (Manisha Koirala) who is married off at the age of 15 to a Dubai based sheikh. He divorces her after raping her for seven days, and her father dies fighting for justice for his daughter. The film takes a seven year leap, and Muskaan is now in a brothel in Hyderabad. She then moves to Mumbai, and is transformed from a small town prostitute to a high class call girl with the help of a couple of friends. She then goes to Dubai, locates the sheikh who was responsible for ruining her life, and plans revenge. The plot is trite, and somehow implies that young girls from a lower section of society are forcefully driven into prostitution. They rarely have any other avenues of livelihood.
Mumbai
Muslim Women
Prostitution
Sex workers
Woman
zinda laash

Your honour, look at this girl carefully. She looks like a living-breathing woman, but she is actually dead from inside. She is dead, your honour!

She is a living corpse. This unfortunate girl will probably never be anybody's wife again. Because man is such a demon, he very easily transforms a woman into a prostitute, but he can never accept a prostitute as a woman.

Lucknow, India
This clip is from the film Pakeezah (dir: Kamal Amrohi, 1971). Nargis (Meena Kumari) was brought up by a brothel madam, and grows up to be a popular and beautiful courtesan. Salim (Raaj Kumar) falls in love with her, and convinces her to escape with him. But her identity is inescapable - and she is recognized as a courtesan wherever she goes. Salim renames her Pakeezah (the pure one) and takes her to a priest to be legally married. She refuses and returns to the brothel, only to save Salim from the stigma attached to her name. Later she discovers that she is actually the daughter of a wealthy nawab, who does not deny this fact. The film highlights that the courtesan's life is full of luxuries and she is economically independent, however she finds her profession so shameful, that she calls herself a living corpse. She believes that her soul is dead. This film also falls within the genre of Hindi cinema that can be called the Muslim social.
Hindi cinema
Kamal Amrohi
Meena Kumari
Muslim social
Pakeezah
Raaj Kumar
beautiful
brothel
corpse
courtesan
dead
genre
prostitute
sex worker
shameful
soul
tawaif
zinda laash

Who is this? Whenever he comes, Nargis is depressed with her shameful surroundings. Her soul starts to appeal,take me away from here. And the love in his eyes, convinces her, that he will not let the flickering light die out in this hellish place. One night I will come, and take you out of this hell.

Aishwarya Rai
Bengal
Bengal
Chandramukhi
Devdas
Devdas (dir: Sanjay Leela Bansali, 2002) was an adaptation of a Bengali novel by the same name written by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay. An earlier version of this novel was made in Bombay cinema in 1955, but it is definitely the more glamorous version starring Shahrukh Khan (Devdas), Aishwarya Rai (Paro) and Madhuri Dixit (Chandramukhi) that is better remembered. Parental opposition marrying his childhood sweetheart, Paro, makes the protagonist Devdas a depressed alcoholic who eventually starts living in a brothel, forming a strange friendship with a famous courtesan Chandramukhi, who is hopelessly in love with him. The film is an interesting take on courtesans, Devdas would initially not allow Chandramukhi to even remotely touch him, he was disgusted by her and her profession and even lectures her on the roles of an ideal woman. Eventually he is able to see her despite her profession and even falls in love with her. The second angle to this is added by the female lead (Paro)- completely improvised on by the director (such a narrative is missing in the original novel), there is a friendship between Paro and Chandramukhi in the film. The two women are united in their love for Devdas, one married to someone else and one a prostitute. In this clip, the societal stigma becomes clear as Devdas's faithful domestic helper is appalled to see his master living with a prostitute.
Durga Puja
Madhuri Dixit
Paro
Sanjay Leela Bhansali
Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay
Shahrukh Khan
Where is Devdas? Call him, I want to meet him.
- He is asleep. He cannot see you now. -
Why? Why can't he see me now? I have come to take him. I will not let him live in this hell.
courtesan
friendship
prostitute
sex worker
tawaif
women
zinda laash